Snowboarding is a recreational sport that combines certain aspects of skiing and skateboarding. It is practiced on an elongated board with boot-binding fixtures which allow a user to fasten the board to his boots. The board must be securely fastened to the user's boots while the user snowboards downhill. However, when walking or shuffling along a substantially level surface, the user must detach one or both boots from the board in order to easily move about.
During a typical day of snowboarding, a snowboarder may go on dozens of runs down a slope, each time having to detach and reattach his bindings in order to move about and get on and off the chairlift. For those reasons, it is desirable for boot bindings to be, on the one hand, secure and tightly fastened while snowboarding downhill, and on the other hand, easily detachable when moving around on even surfaces.
Various improvements have been attempted with respect to boot bindings, including the inventions described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,356,159; 5,609,347; 5,857,700; 6,250,651; 6,604,746; 6,644,681; 6,773,020; 6,974,149; 7,011,333; 7,036,830; 7,694,994; 7,887,082; 8,226,108; 8,276,921; 8,356,822; 8,371,004; 8,424,168; and 8,500,151; as well as U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2002/0000707; 2012/0255980; and 2012/0292887. The contents of all U.S. Patents and Publications cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety, as if fully set forth herein.
Despite the improvements noted above, there still exists a need to more easily facilitate the attachment and detachment of bindings. One problem with bindings currently know in the art that utilize straps to secure the binding, when the male strap becomes completely dislodged from the female connection piece, it is difficult to feed the male piece back through quickly and efficiently. This is especially true when the user is wearing gloves or mittens, which is generally the case when snowboarding or engaging in other cold-weather outdoor activities. A mechanism that obviates the need to feed a male end through a female end would be a particularly useful advancement. Snowboarders also have a need to definitively identify their snowboards from those of other users, particularly when the board is detached and commingled with other users' equipment. The present invention provides devices and systems that make attachment and detachment of bindings easier, as well as provides a customizable feature to help identify the user's equipment. The invention addresses longstanding needs in the art and constitutes progress in science and the useful arts worthy of Letters Patent protection, it is respectfully proposed.